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Nelson Memorial Cemetery view, British Columbia, Canada

The BCGS has just published the Nelson BC Memorial Cemetery CD. This CD contains transcriptions done by Audrey and Henry E. Stevenson along with some photographs and other images from the cemetery and headstones.

BCGS DNA Group Update, 22 September 2014

The next BCGS DNA-Genetic Genealogy Group meeting will be 25 November 2014, 1 pm at the BCGS Walter Draycott Library. Contact the Facilitator for more information, e-mail: bcgs @ bcgs.ca

The Institute for Genetic Genealogy has now available for purchase videos of 27 presentations from the 2014 International Genetic Genealogy Conference held in August in Maryland, USA. Continue reading →

Join Lorraine Irving from the BC Genealogical Society for a walking tour of the cemetery’s highest sections, Horne 1 and 2. Enjoy a fantastic view of downtown Vancouver and the mountains. You’ll hear about a soldier who fought in the Riel Rebellion that’s buried near the WW1 cenotaph, a survivor of the Titanic, and more.

Free, followed by coffee on site, courtesy of the cemetery management.

Wear comfortable walking shoes, as this tour entails a fair bit of walking.

Around 1919, Burnaby’s Ocean View Cemetery created a burial section on its perimeter as far from its entrance as one could walk, in order to meet the needs of non-Europeans seeking internment of their deceased. This small segregated plot was named Mongolia, one of the racist epithets designating Asians during that period. You will see buried there, side by side, the well-known Vancouverite Won Alexander Cumyow, and Ross Hendrix, later made famous by his Vancouver-raised grandson, guitarist Jimi Hendrix.

This measure was but a symptom of the racism exercised well into the 1960s in cemeteries in the British Empire, a reflection of the racial climate experienced in the day-to-day life of non-whites.

At Ocean View, you will see the evolution of this approach to burial over a century, from segregated plots to accommodating sections in mausoleums, and to sections catering largely to the Chinese community, where feng-shui stipulations and family estates lay a new claim to identity for this community. You will witness the effects of trans-Pacific political decisions that dramatically reformed centuries-held traditions such as the removal of remains back to China, to the advent of reverse migration of remains from China to North America.